(You probably need to read Part 1 to get the full context for this post. Here we tell you about our trip to the Hurricane Helene response site in Hendersonville, North Carolina.)
In Hendersonville, Crisis Response has been blessed with a partnership between two churches. One of these is a small Evangelical Free Church plant. The other is an Evangelical Presbyterian church. Even before Helene, these two churches were partnering to support the church plant. And even before Helene the pastor of the Presbyterian church had connections with Crisis Response dating back to Hurricane Katrina. The resulting partnership is ideal for long term impact in the Hendersonville area.
Gail, Katrina and I were supposed to arrive on Wednesday, the 22nd, but because of the snowstorm we could not get out of Atlanta. We ended up arriving on the 23rd. We first went to the job sites. CR is working in a neighborhood called Creekside. (Kind of ironic that the creek which flooded these homes is called Clear Creek. Sound familiar, Friendswood people?) These homes were flooded about six feet deep, though they were already six feet above the ground. There are about 50 homes in the neighborhood and CR is working on five of them, with more to come.
That evening Katrina led a Trauma Care training for church members. As is so often the case, they were enthusiastic about the skills they were learning and identified several opportunities for follow-up training. In addition, the site staff will be doing Trauma Care training for the teams that come in to work.
On Friday we spent most of the day with the site staff going through our new book, Finding Hope. We looked at each of the five studies and thought about how they might have the most impact on the lives of homeowners and hurricane survivors. The Hendersonville site plans to start using the book in Creekside in March.
Saturday we explored some of the other areas that had been hard hit by Helene, including downtown Asheville and Swannanoa. Whole swathes of the city and of the town were wiped clean by the storm and the clean-up. Katrina had talked to someone on the plane on her flight in and we went to see the church in Swannanoa that had been torn apart by the flooding.
Sunday morning we went to Living Hope Fellowship, the EFCA church plant. They’ve got a small facility and a nice fellowship. Then we boarded a plane for our (much faster) return to Houston.
It was exciting to see the work the Lord is doing in North Carolina. This response will be going on for a long time, and you can help. While we’d love to see you bring a team to Fort Myers, the Hendersonville site also has dates available. If you can’t bring a team but have some home rebuilding skills, you can come as adjunct staff. If that doesn’t work for you, you can begin or continue the most important ministry of all: support. You can become part of our frequent pray-ers team, which gets more frequent updates and requests. Or you can give, one time or monthly, to allow Gail and I to continue serving. For everything but giving, contact Gail (gsdegray@gmail.com) or Bob (rjdegray@gmail.com) For giving go to Bob and Gail DeGray Giving Page. Thanks
Hey Bob and Gail:
Tim and I are interested in joining you in Hendersonville in the near future. It depends on timing, cost, where we would stay. Tim definitely has skills and I do too although I am a lot more limited. Let us know next steps.
Love, Judi